Category Archives: iBooks

Few things divide the opinions of teachers more than the use of technology in the classroom but with more than 20 years of the internet I thought we would have moved on from “Whether?” to “How?” It seems though that I’m mistaken, as France moves to ban mobile devices from their children’s classrooms I’m once again appalled that our education systems can be so out of touch with our students’ day-to-day realities.

Both sides in this debate regularly site research or the lack of it to enforce their arguments that technology should or shouldn’t be used, but much of this research is either very small scale and carried out within a very limited context or looks at how technology can be overlaid onto an antiquated approach to transmission teaching that itself has no foundation in research and was only used in the absence of any other approach.

So, I feel like common sense should be our guide and here are four reasons why teaching students how to use technology should be a no-brainer.

Developing writing skills

With the vast majority of written discourse being created on digital devices it would seem only natural that we look to digital tools to assist in both the production of a wide range of text based genre and also in the teaching of the sub-skills of writing.

In addition to this the move to digital text production has enabled the creation of a number of tools that can assist students in the production of better quality writing and supply them with feedback, guidance and suggestions for improving the quality of their output. Many of these kinds of tools don’t exist in the analogue world of paper-based production, so it is imperative that we as teachers help to educate our students to enable them to get the best from these tools and resources.

Another significant change that digital text production has ushered in is the ability to produce text collaboratively, both asynchronously and synchronously. The skills involved in working collaboratively to produce and refine text are becoming increasingly important in todays modern workplace, so again this reinforces the importance of developing students writing skills within the digital realm.

Developing speaking skills

Digital connectivity has brought about a revolution in the way we use voice to communicate both with each other and with the digital devices that accompany us wherever we go. Face-to-face synchronous communication across continents has become a day-to-day experience for many people and the use of voice to control various aspects of our computers and indeed our homes is becoming normalised.

With the falling cost, increased accessibility and use of voice communication tools across continents and cultures it seems only natural that we should be helping our students to access and make use of these tools effectively both inside and outside the classroom. These tools don’t just offer our students the opportunity for genuine language use but they also offer them the opportunity to record and reflect on their own abilities and take a more autonomous and self-aware approach to the development of speaking skills.

Developing reading skills

Despite the proliferation and popularity of video and audio on the internet, the vast majority of what is published and consumed online is still text. Reading from screens, websites and digital communication tools present students with some unique challenges that the more linear, homogeneously sealed environment of paper-based communication doesn’t. In contrast to the challenges of reading from screen, digital tools also offer a range of functionality to support the reading process and make it more engaging and enriching.

It can also be argued that we now consume text in a very different way on digital devices. We are much more likely to explore background information, take tangental journeys away from the original topic and read across multiple texts and genres during our searches and researches. Developing the skills necessary to read effectively in this new digital environment can only be done using the tools and devices that are native to that environment, so as teachers we need to ensure that we are using a range of digital texts and tools that help students to develop the skills they need to navigate this digital world with confidence.

Developing listening skills

Much like speaking, the digital communications revolution has expanded access to a huge variety of digital genres and with that a range of voices and accents that students would never experience in the analogue classroom.

These digital communication tools coupled with the proliferation of mobile devices offer students the opportunity to work more autonomously to develop their listening skills both inside and outside the classroom. Helping students to negotiate the huge range of available tools and use them in a way that enables them to develop their listening and communication skills more effectively should be among the top priorities of language teachers.

These four short texts come from my ebook – Digital Tools for Teachers – Trainers’ Edition.

I was looking for a free tool I could use to publish ebooks to the Android platform when I came across Kotobee Author. I downloaded a free copy and discovered how easy it was to use and how versatile. In this interview Ayman CEO of Vijua talks about the Kotobee Author, its many features and how it can help aspiring writers, publishers and educational institutions.

What’s your elevator pitch?

Kotobee is a comprehensive solution for creating interactive ebooks and libraries in different formats, supporting all platforms.

What are the pros and cons of producing an app version of an ebook as opposed to a standard ebook for the iBook Store?

We get asked that quite a lot actually. For an app to work as an ebook, an embedded-reader is required. That is, an engine responsible for running the ebook file, providing common functions like search, note-taking, bookmarking, etc. That’s one of the things offered by Kotobee. Having an embedded-reader gives you the advantage of doing whatever you like with the interface. You can control the design, layout, functionality, etc. An app can have your own logo and name, hence stronger branding – something that is not possible with standard ebooks. The embedded-reader however increases the size required for download.

A standard ebook for Apple’s iBook Store will give users the luxury of accessing all their ebooks from a single app, i.e. Apple iBooks. Publishing to the iBook Store is free, in contrast to the App Store, which charges $99 annual. Ideally it would be best to publish to both formats.

What ebook formats can be created using your solution?

The ebook formats supported by Kotobee Author, our creator software, are EPUB, Kindle (MOBI), HTML5 web apps, Mobile apps for Android, iOS, Windows Phone, desktop apps for Windows and Mac, and SCORM components for an LMS. All these formats are actually free to create on Kotobee, with the exception of mobile apps.

One of the services you provide is a branded e-library. What are the benefits of this service and what kind of customer is that aimed at?

The Kotobee library solution is targeted at institutes who want to have their own platform for serving ebooks or courses to their users, instead of publishing ebooks individually. So the institute will have their own branded library app to offer to their students. The institute can then dynamically publish books to the library from a friendly administrator panel, plus they control users’ access to the library. User permissions can be assigned to specific books or book categories. Their library app would be made available for web, desktop, and mobile.

Our library solution is a significant investment and provides a full end-to-end solution for institutes.

With the library app you can:

Publish books dynamically (individually or in bulk) and edit them on the fly.

Collect statistics on book view and downloads.

Create book categories and genres.

Add users to the library, with different access permissions.

Limit the number of devices to be used per user, for security reasons.

Customize the look and feel, and enable only the components you need.

Assign different administrators and authors to your library.

Export the library to multiple formats.

e-Books have been slow to make an impact on the educational market. Why do you think this is?

That’s a good question. We are actually seeing ebooks catching up really quickly in the corporate training sector, but not so much for large educational entities, that are long established and deeply rooted. Changes with such entities are slow. That explains why we are finding the majority of requests coming from small or new institutes, rather than established ones. Large entities are interested in having solutions that integrate with what’s already in place, rather than replacing it. Our SCORM ebook format is kind of popular actually even with older universities, because that simply plugs into their systems without any risk of change.

What do you view as Kotobee’s greatest achievement so far?

We’re proud to be offering the most comprehensive white-labeled ebook solution available today in the market.

What mistakes have you made and what have you learned from them?

A marketing mistake we had made in the past, is not providing a free value for users in Kotobee Publisher, Kotobee Author’s predecessor. Although we provided a free trial, this was not sufficient. To capture users and make effective exposure for your software, you really need to provide a free value to the users. This made exposure for Kotobee very slow. In Kotobee Author, we’re providing a good free package, for commercial or non-commercial use, without asking for anything in return. This has increased our customer loyalty and exposure through word of mouth.

How do you intend to change and develop Kotobee for the future?

Currently we are extending our ebooks’ SCORM components, to introduce new integration capabilities with LMS for universities and schools. We will also be creating support for built-in payments inside libraries, for example users can assign prices for ebooks and receive payments immediately into their accounts.

I know you are based in Egypt. Can you describe the startup scene in Egypt?

Egypt is a promising region for local entrepreneurs starting their ventures. The resources exist to initiate projects with zero-investment. These resources include various investment programs, co-working spaces, affordable offices, and a number of annual startup events to help network with key people. At the time of writing, a government-based fund exists to assist tech-based startups in different ways, leveraging up to 70% of their costs.

Ayman Abdel-Rahman is a digital publishing enthusiast with 10 years of experience in the ebook industry. He graduated from the University of Waterloo, Canada, with a Masters degree in Computer Engineering in 2006. Ayman spent his childhood in Kuwait, a few years in Canada, and currently settled in his home country, Egypt. He established Vijua in 2011, after the Egyptian revolution. Coming from a technical background, he is a certified project management professional (PMP) and is currently the managing director of Vijua, with particular focus on the Kotobee platform. Before establishing Vijua, Ayman was managing the Media & UX department at The Book Depository in Cairo. Ayman likes to write about ebook technologies in the Kotobee Blog and answers related questions on Quora.

I’ve been a long time fan of Apple’s iBooks Author. It’s great for producing interactive books and lesson materials for the iBook Store or to export as PDF for other platforms, but more recently I’ve become frustrated with the inability to publish interactive books for other platforms particularly Android and Windows.

I tried a number of tools but just wasn’t satisfied until I found Kotobee Author. Like iBooks Author it is free to download, but it will run on most platforms so you don’t have to be a Mac owner to use it, but what’s really great about Kotobee is its ability to export to so many different formats and platforms.

How do you use Kotobee Author?

When you first download Kotobee it looks pretty much like any other WYSIWYG editor, but it has so many more great features.

You start by setting up your book structure and adding a cover image in the left side. This is simple to do, just write in the names of the chapter titles and click image editor to add a cover.

You can then add subsections to each chapter and start typing or copy paste in your text. You format the text as you would with any other text editor and it’s easy to change fonts, styles and add tables.

The real fun starts though with the right hand column of the editor. This is where you can start to add media such as images, audio, video and 3D objects and different types of interaction.

There are three different standard types of interactive questions that can be used within the Kotobee books. These are multiple choice, true false and multiple select. The questions are very configurable so you can add in feedback depending on students responses and also add in images to the questions types.

If you want to take a more professional approach to building in interactivity Kotobee supports a number of widgets as well as html5 content.

Once you have completed the content of your book the next step is to customise how your readers will be able to interact with the book. Again there are lots of option here to really enhance the way the reader experiences the book, such as text-to-speech, adding annotations copying parts to their clipboard and sharing through social media.

For me the real surprise comes when you have finished your book and you want to export it. You can export your book into most of the standard word processing formats such as Word, PDF, Epub and .mobi, but can also export it as a desktop application, enable it to run on an LMS such as Moodle and make it a tracked part of of a course, or make it into a web based application that you can upload to a server.

Creating a mobile app

Kotobee books can also be exported as iOS, Android or Windows native apps and sold within their relative market places. For this you would need to have your own account on those platforms and there is a charge from Kotobee, but they will also help you get your app through the approval process and that can save you a considerable amount of time.

Creating a digital library

One of the final options Kotobee offers is the ability to create your own library for your students and add books to that library. This is a great option for schools that want to go completely digital with their course materials and books and the library can be branded for each individual school.

What I like about Kotobee

I think it’s a great free tool that’s quite quick and easy to learn.

It’s great to be able to export to so many different formats, especially if you work in a BYOD environment.

Adding media and interaction is very simple so teachers could use Kotobee to create digital worksheets for classroom use or as interactive homework assignments.

Kotobee offers a lot of great ways to manage your content once it’s been produced.

Basically I think this is a great tool for both the individual teacher to create interactive materials or for a school that wants to get away from paper course materials and move into the digital age.